“ … It was fortuitous that our agency was able to rely on these dedicated, dependable and professional individuals (BTG students) for program support. They provided a needed service that staff would not have been able to provide because of the increased demand.”

BTG Community Preceptor

Welcome to Bridging the Gaps

BTG includes the Community Health Internship Program (BTG CHIP) in all locations as well as two additional components in Philadelphia: the BTG Seminar Series and the BTG Clinical Prgram. Each academic year, students representing health and social service disciplines, including medicine, dentistry, nursing, social work, creative arts in therapy, occupational therapy, physical therapy, pharmacology, public health, law, physician assistant, and related fields, take part in BTG.

BTG began in 1991 at one academic health center in Philadelphia. Five years later, all of Philadelphia’s academic health centers had adopted the program. Today, BTG is administered in Philadelphia by the Bridging the Gaps Consortium, which comprises representatives from Drexel University, Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine, Temple University, Thomas Jefferson University, and the University of Pennsylvania. Philadelphia also includes affiliated programs at Bryn Mawr College (social work), La Salle University (nursing), and University of the Sciences. Based on the Philadelphia model, Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine and the University of Pittsburgh implemented their own programs and joined with the Consortium to form the Bridging the Gaps Network. Most recently, the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (now Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey) established an affiliated program in New Jersey, and a program was established in the Lehigh Valley through a collaboration between the Lehigh Valley Health Network and DeSales University.

Over the years, BTG's work has been recognized locally and nationally by the City of Philadelphia, the Pennsylvania Department of Health, the Senate of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the American College of Physicians, the Philadelphia County Medical Society, and the American Red Cross, as well as community-based and corporate entities.

2014 BTG Student Interns

BTG 20th Anniversary Tribute

“I learned that although I cannot change the entire system, I could be a part of a hopeful change: one child, one relationship … I learned through BTG that everyone in the health professions is an integral part in serving this community optimally.”